Fernando Ortíz Fernández

He is considered one of the most significant scientific figures in Cuba and Latin America. He was a historian, ethnologist, sociologist, linguist, musicographer, jurist, and critic. His contribution to Cuban and Ibero-American culture constituted an imperishable legacy for the heritage of our continent. He created and developed concepts such as "transculturation" and "Afro-Cuban studies," widely disseminated in the most diverse fields.

Don Fernando Ortiz, in his second marriage, married María Herrera, who accompanied him for the rest of his life. María was a close collaborator of the master, and from their union was born María Fernanda Ortiz, who, like her mother, was attentive to the work of the wise Cuban, whom she cared for with filial affection.

All of his childhood and early youth took place in Menorca (Balearic Islands). He studied Civil Law and Public Law at the Universities of Barcelona, Madrid, and Havana. For some time he resided in Paris and in Italy, where his studies on criminology led him to form a friendship with César Lombroso and Enrico Ferri.

He was a professor for nine years at the University of Havana and was among the founders of the Popular University. He belonged to the Economic Society of Friends of the Country and was elected its President from 1923 to 1932. He was a member of Cuba's Chamber of Representatives from 1917 to 1927 and drafted in 1926 the Project for the Cuban Criminal Code that contained a program of legislative and administrative reforms that was very advanced for the time. He also developed different proposals regarding the Cuban educational system.

He was part of the Minorista Group, which had such an impact on Cuban culture and politics in the 1930s, and was closely associated with renowned intellectuals and artists such as Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca, Nicolás Guillén, Wifredo Lam, Alejo Carpentier, Rita Montaner, María Zambrano, Fernando de los Ríos, and others.

He founded and edited the publications Journal of Theoretical and Practical Administration of the State, the Province and the Municipality (1912), Archives of Folklore (1924), Surco (1930), and Ultra (1936).

He created, was part of, and contributed with wisdom and his initiatives to the following institutions: Cuban Folklore Society (1923), Pan-American Institute of Geography (1928), Society of Afro-Cuban Studies (1937), International Institute of Afro-American Studies (1943), Hispano-Cuban Institute of Culture (1926), and Cuban-Soviet Cultural Institute (1945).

At the University of Havana he taught summer seminars that constituted a milestone in the process of understanding Cuban identity. From those seminars emerged figures as relevant in ethnomusicological and ethnographic studies as Argeliers León, María Teresa Linares, Isaac Barreal, and others. His life was dedicated to the discovery of Cuban identity and to the rescue and revaluation of the African presence in Cuban culture. He investigated and delved into the processes of transculturation and historical formation of Cuban nationality.

He attended numerous international congresses and seminars, including the Sixth Pan-American International Conference (1928), First Inter-American International Demographic Congress (1943), International Congress of Archaeology (1945), International Congress of Americanists (1952), Congress of Anthropology and Ethnology (1952), International Folklore Congress (1954), held in Mexico, Oxford, São Paulo, and other places. He was a Delegate to the Cultural Congress of Havana in 1968. In the 1950s he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his long and fruitful life he published more than one hundred titles, among books and pamphlets, his main works being: The Black Sorcerers (1906), Among Cubans (1913), Dactyloscopic Identification (1913), Enslaved Blacks (1916), The Afro-Cuban Celebration of the Day of Kings (1920), Afro-Cuban Cabildos (1921), History of Indo-Cuban Archaeology (1922), A Medley of Cubanisms (1923), Glossary of Afro-Negrismos (1924), Project for the Cuban Criminal Code (1926), Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (1940), The Human Factors of Cubanity (1949), Martí and the Races (1942), The Deception of Races (1946), The Hurricane, Its Mythology and Its Symbols (1947), The Africanism of Cuban Folklore Music (1950), Wifredo Lam and His Work Viewed Through Critical Meanings (1950), The Dances and Theater of Blacks in Cuban Folklore (1951), The Instruments of Afro-Cuban Music (1952, 5 vols.) and History of a Cuban Fight Against Demons (1959).

"So broad and profound was the task of Don Fernando—wrote Juan Marinello—that he can bear, without bending, the title of Third Discoverer of Cuba..."